Crouching Woman

Henry Coles (1875 -?)

1903-1904

Carbon print

H. 22.1 cm ; W. 17 cm

Ph.297

Not counting Druet, Haweis and Coles were the first of Rodin’s photographers to experiment with artificial light.Now associated with the Pictorialist movement, the two British artists - Haweis was a painter – took about 200 photographs for Rodin in under two years.“We shall come… and show you half a dozen photographs of Mr Kelly’s bronze Crouching Womantaken in artificial light, which I think are very good.”

While they no doubt intially chose this type of lighting so as to be able to take photographs inside, it soon helped them to develop an innovative aesthetic approach.

This against-the-light shot of Crouching Womanshows a less provocative figure than the sculpture with which we are familar : her outspread knees are still visible, but her genitalia are hidden in the shadow and the emphasis, here, is on her facial expression.